I’ve written this story before, but I’ve also mentioned that I never want anything to be fixed or definitive in this religion that I am creating for myself. Religion is a question that I am seeking to ask as sincerely as anyone ever has. So the above title is not so much a statement but a question that I am asking myself: What exactly do I mean by all of this?
Category: philosophy
Summa: A Satanist Reads the Nicene Creed
Summa is a choral setting of the Latin translation of the Nicene Creed, composed by the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt in 1977. He later arranged it for strings, and that rendition is perhaps the more popular, but I have never been able to appreciate the music apart from the text. It is one of my favorite works of music, but I can’t listen to it without hearing the ideological dissonance within it. The music seems to be expressing something to which the text is antithetical.
Cain Murders Abel
What were Cain and Abel told by their parents in their childhood? All children wish to know about the world, and inevitably ask questions to that effect. Parents, in response, tell stories that signify their knowledge thereof. Did Adam and Eve tell them about their life in the Garden of Eden, how they sought knowledge and were for that reason exiled from paradise?
On the Mystical Experience of the Sacred
Skeptics of all stripes will rightly scoff at the word “sacred.” It has often been used over the course of history as a hollow justification for the rationally unjustifiable. But taken in its proper context, its reality and relevance to our lives is unavoidable.
Another Account of the Creation
As mentioned in the previous essay on the Book of Genesis, there are two distinct creation narratives present at the beginning of the book, both well-known in popular culture. The second continues from the first—-starting in the middle of chapter 2, verse 4—-but immediately distinguishes itself from the first in several ways:
Satan the Accuser
Much of Satanic symbolism is oriented around an archetype of Satan that I refer to as Satan the Adversary. This is Satan as the Rebel Angel, whose rebellion against God and subsequent fall from heaven is described in Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost. As compelling and inspiring as I find this archetype, my own philosophy is predicated upon another: Satan the Accuser.
What I Mean When I Say that I Am a Satanist
What I mean when I say that I am a Satanist is markedly different, I think, from most other uses of that word. And yet I find no other word quite so apt when it comes to capturing the scope and essence of my ideas and beliefs.